State of Florida Emergency Management S

Tructure

The emergency management structure in the State of Florida is guided by Chapter 252, Florida Statute and establishes a structure for disaster management, which identifies four (4) levels of ascending intervention (local, county, state and federal). The basic concept of the SERP is to allow the first level (local) of government to be charged with the initial responsibility for emergency response and relief, attempting to mitigate the situation with the resources available. Requests for assistance from the next higher level will be made when the magnitude of the disaster either exceeds the resources available locally, or otherwise not available

Under Chapter 252, each county government is to operate an emergency management agency for the purpose of coordinating disaster relief efforts in that county. Upon or in the anticipation of the exhaustion of resources at the county level and existing mutual aid agreements, requests for State assistance through the Statewide Mutual Aid Agreement (SMAA) will be made to the Florida Division of Emergency Management (FDEM). The Governor may declare a state of emergency and direct state resources into the affected area. State resources may also be requested from other States through the Emergency Management Assistance Compact (EMAC). These requests will be filtered through the FDEM and the State Emergency Operations Center (SEOC). The SEOC would be activated and will provide direct liaison to the County Emergency Operations Center (EOC) regarding the coordination of State and/or EMAC resources operating and/or responding into the affected area. The FDEM will coordinate all disaster resources through various Emergency Support Functions (ESF’s). Each ESF has assigned to it a State agency with primary responsibility for managing that function (Table 1).

When all the previously stated resources are determined to be inadequate to respond to the emergency, the Governor will request assistance through the Department of Homeland Security/Federal Emergency Management Agency (DHS/FEMA). When the President of the United States declares an emergency or a major disaster, federal assistance would then be authorized to assist State government. In Florida, the FDEM has been designated as the State agency responsible for coordinating assistance received through federal programs.